Roger Clemens ex-trainer Brian McNamee admits initially lying about steroids

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - In another grueling day of cross-examination that frustrated all sides, Roger Clemens' accuser put Jose Canseco's pool party on the wrong day of the week and switched years on Debbie Clemens' human growth hormone shot. Whether the jurors were still keeping track is another matter: They again expressed concern about the agonizingly slow pace of a perjury trial that still has weeks to go, and the judge opined that Clemens' lawyer was "confusing everybody."

Brian McNamee was on the stand Thursday for a fourth day, holding firm to his testimony that he injected Clemens with steroids from 1998 to 2001 and HGH in 2000. McNamee again conceded that his memory of some details has evolved over the years, and that he initially told some lies during the drugs-in-baseball investigation conducted by federal agents and former Sen. George Mitchell.

Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin tried to exploit those inconsistencies, even if it meant taking the case far afield from the principle issue of whether Clemens actually used performance-enhancing drugs. The seven-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher is accused of lying when he testified to Congress in 2008 that he never used steroids or HGH.

"Did you ever tell Sen. Mitchell that you injected Roger Clemens approximately four times in the rear over a two-week period in 1998?" Hardin asked.

"That's possible," McNamee answered.

"If you did tell him ... would that be a lie?" Hardin asked.

"Yes, it would," said McNamee, who testified this week that he injected Clemens about eight to 10 times during Clemens' 1998 season with the Toronto Blue Jays.

McNamee again maintained that he had minimized the number of shots to try to help out Clemens.

"I wanted to make it not look like he was a bigger steroids user than he was. ... I never lied about the usage, just amounts," he said.

McNamee said Clemens and his other client were his only sources of income and he wanted to keep his job, because training them was the only source of income he had, CBS News producer Traci Caldwell reports.

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There were several similar exchanges as part of Hardin's aim to portray McNamee as a serial liar. Hardin also displayed a calendar to show that a 1998 pool party at former slugger Canseco's house was on a Tuesday; McNamee has always remembered it taking place on a Saturday. McNamee then went back and forth trying to place the date he gave Clemens' wife an HGH shot at the Clemens' home in Texas — switching from the 2003-04 offseason to the 2002-03 offseason.

"I could be confused," McNamee said. "I'm getting handed a lot of dates."

But it's an open question whether the lawyer's scattershot approach — leapfrogging from topic to topic with complex questions that evoke frequent objections from the government — will pay dividends with the jury. A serious trial that could end up sending one of baseball's all-time greats to prison was peppered with exchanges Thursday that sounded more like a situation comedy.

There was this exchange in which Hardin wanted to know why McNamee didn't tip off Clemens after being contacted by federal authorities:

McNamee said Clemens never asked.

Hardin: "How could he ask if he didn't know?"

McNamee: "How could I answer if he didn't ask?"

Hardin: "You're serious?"

At another point, when Hardin was switching topics at a fast and furious pace, McNamee turned his palms up and said: "You're going from articles to emails — I'm trying to keep up, man."

Later, as Hardin was trying to pin another lie on him, McNamee responded: "I'm having a problem with the `lie' thing."

Then, when explaining why he decided to cooperate with federal authorities, McNamee said: "They would have had an opportunity to lock me up for lying." But Hardin mistook McNamee's thick New York accent, thinking McNamee said "life" instead of "lying." Hardin started to make a big deal of the comment until McNamee corrected him.

The sputtering pace of the trial, now in its fifth week, is taking a noticeable toll on the jury. Two members of the panel already have been dismissed for sleeping, leaving 12 jurors and two alternates. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton emerged from a morning break and said they've been asking again how long the trial will last.

"Jurors have lives they want to get back to," Walton said.

The judge said that "someone's going to pay the price" for the slow pace, and he then segued into a critique of Hardin's all-over-the-place questioning.

"It's confusing everybody," Walton said, "but I don't think it's making much of a point."

Walton also sounded incredulous when the government said it had 14 more witnesses to call, bringing the total to 26. The judge told the jury that he expects the trial to last through at least June 8.

"At this pace," the judge said, "I'll guess we'll be here forever."